Pages

2006/08/16

A tryst with Destiny

While deleting old drafts I came upon something I wrote last year on Independence Day and did not post . A premier private news channel posted groups of various representatives at strategic points in Delhi with the intention of quizzing parliamentarians on some basic facts related to the National Flag, anthem and Gandhi .

The programme was fairly hilarious and better than a comic revue because it was impromptu and elicited the most baffling responses from parliamentarians .Although none of the individuals were significantly important ,the fact that they were elected representatives of the people and hence assumed to possess a working knowledge of not so trivial facts connected to Independence, which a child can rattle off by the time they reach Class II, maybe, lent a faintly tragi-comic air to the programme.

The answers were hilarious and it could have been a truly comic programme were it not for the fact that the people anwering the questions were "Hon MPs" most of them clueless about the history of the country that they run .

One very senior lady MP from the Rajya Sabha very condescendingly said that there was a lot of "itihaas" related to the songs and offered to take a lesson in history for the interviewers at her inconvenience , but couldnt identify the name of the persons who wrote the National anthem or the National song

However she tra la laed the anthem lest one got the impression she did not know the lyrics.

Another guy was hopelessly confused and said there was a tremendous confusion at that time ie during Independence as to who wrote the national song and anthem - presumably he's still confused after the programme ...